SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2012
8:14:51 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 141
PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 141:5-10
Message of
the verses: “I Will Gladly
Accept Counsel” (v5): “5 ¶
Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon
the head; Do not let my head refuse it, For still my prayer is against their
wicked deeds.”
First we must know that the “righteous” could be
translated as the “Righteous One,” and therefore be speaking of God. Either way the meaning is the same as Dr.
Wiersbe explains, “When we yield to God’s will, the difficulties of life are
tools that God uses to bring maturity to our lives. Often the Lord sends people to speak to us
and their words hurt us, but they do not harm us.” “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate
you, Reprove a wise man and he will love you (Pr. 9:8); “10 ¶ A rebuke goes deeper into one who has
understanding Than a hundred blows into a fool (Pr. 10:17): 25 ¶ Strike a scoffer and the naive may become
shrewd, But reprove one who has understanding and he will gain knowledge (Pr.
19:25); 10 Do not forsake your own
friend or your father’s friend, And do not go to your brother’s house in the
day of your calamity; Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away
(Pr. 27:10.”
The mention of oil upon the head is speaking of David’s
enemies using a bait to trap him by their so called kindness and David would
have none of it.
“I Will Let God Judge My Enemies (vv. 6-7): “6
Their judges are thrown down by the sides of the rock, And they hear my
words, for they are pleasant. 7 As when
one plows and breaks open the earth, Our bones have been scattered at the mouth
of Sheol.”
11/29/2012 12:34:23 PM
This is a
difficult passage to understand so I will use the “Message” to help us better
understand these verses: “6 Oh,
let their leaders be pushed off a high rock cliff; make them face the music.
7 Like a rock pulverized by a maul, let
their bones be scattered at the gates of hell.”
Next
I want to show what Charles H. Spurgeon has to say about verse six: “This is a verse of which the meaning seems
far to seek. Does it refer to the righteous among the Israelites? We think so.
David surely means that when their leaders fell never to rise again, they would
then turn to him and take delight in listening to his voice. When their judges
are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet.
And so they did: the death of Saul made all the best of the nation look to the
son of Jesse as the Lord’s anointed; his words became sweet to them. Many of
those good men who had spoken severely of David’s quitting his country, and
going over to the Philistines, were nevertheless dear to his heart for their
fidelity, and to them he returned nothing but good will, loving prayers, and
sweet speeches, knowing that by and by they would overlook his faults, and
select him to be their leader. They
smote him when he erred, but they recognized his excellences. He, on his part,
bore no resentment, but loved them for their honesty. He would pray for them when
their land lay bleeding at the feet of their foreign enemies; he would come to
their rescue when their former leaders were slain; and his words of courageous
hopefulness would be sweet in their ears. This seems to me to be a good sense,
consistent with the context. At the same time, other and more labored
interpretations have their learned admirers, and to these we will refer in our
notes from other authors.”
Ver.
7. Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, &c.] Into which they were
not suffered to be put, but lay unburied; or from whence they were dug up, and
lay scattered about; which is to be understood of such of David’s friends as
fell into the hands of Saul and his men, and were slain: perhaps it may refer
to the fourscore and five priests, and the inhabitants of Nob, slain by the
order of Saul, #1Sa 22:18,19. Though the phrase may be only proverbial, and be
expressive of the danger David and his men were in, and their sense of it, who
looked upon themselves like dry bones, hopeless and helpless, and had the
sentence of death in themselves, and were as it were at the mouth of the grave,
on the brink of ruin.” (John Gill on
verse seven.)
Dr.
Wiersbe has this to say about these verses, “When God judged the leaders; their
followers will agree that David’s words were correct, especially when they see unburied
bones of those leaders bleaching in the sun.”
He
states at the beginning of his commentary these words, “These two verses have puzzled
translators and expositors, but the general message seems clear. David continued to pray for his enemies, and
he saw a day coming when God would judge them and vindicate his own cause
(138:8; 140:12).”
“I Will Keep Going by Faith (vv.
8-10): “8 For my eyes are toward You, O GOD, the Lord;
In You I take refuge; do not leave me defenseless. 9 Keep me from the jaws of the trap which they
have set for me, And from the snares of those who do iniquity. 10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
While I pass by safely.”
David
starts verse eight by saying that His eyes are toward the Lord, which means
that he was living a moment by moment dependence upon the Lord. Sometimes when we are having most everything
going our way, and living in our country this seems to be the way we feel much
of the time, however David was living in an era where he was being chased by
Saul’s men, fearing for his life and living out in the wilderness, things were
surely different. It was about sixteen
years ago that both of my children were on short term missionary trips, which
made it tough on my wife and myself because we were use to having them around
the house and missed both of them greatly.
When they returned, from their trips we learned that our daughter had a
very difficult situation which she faced in Peru. She testified in church that at this time in
her life she had learned first handed how to depend on the Lord step by
step. The situation was difficult by her
faith increased through going through this difficult situation. David faced difficulties too, and we see that
he too kept going by faith, faith in the Lord his God.
Dr.
Wiersbe concludes his commentary with these words, “Life goes on and there is work to do, so we must
not allow tough situations to paralyze us but to energize us in trusting the
Lord. Life’s trials are not excuses for
doing nothing; they are opportunities for claiming God’s promises and
experiencing His miraculous power.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I go
through life I learn that life is a series of tests, a series of temptations
and trials which are given to me so that I can be transformed into the image of
my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Temptations are from the devil to make us worse off, while trials come from
the Lord to make us better. Paul writes
that there is no temptation (or trial) that has taken me that is not common to
man, and then he goes on to say that God is faithful in not allowing any trial
to overcome us, but He will give us what is needed to overcome these trails and
temptations, and then we should praise the Lord for what He has done.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Learn to be content, and learn to be
transformed by His Word.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 130:1-6
1 Out of the debts I cried to You, O LORD. 2 Lord hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications. 3 If You, LORD, should
mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, And in His Word
do I hope. 6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than the watchman for the morning; Indeed more than the watchman for the
morning.
11/29/2012 1:16:03 PM
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